


Walls Tumble Down

by days_of_storm



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-08
Updated: 2012-12-08
Packaged: 2017-11-20 14:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/586593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/days_of_storm/pseuds/days_of_storm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is reckless once again and this time John can't just let it slide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walls Tumble Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dinniethecumberbitch](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Dinniethecumberbitch).



> I wrote this for the tumblr Christmas Challenge Exchange with the prompt: "Sherlock apologises for being mean." I only wanted to write something short and then this happened.

The case initially didn’t even manage to get Sherlock to look up from his experiment, and John was fairly glad that Sherlock hadn’t gone and done anything especially insane or stupid even though he hadn’t had a case in a week. It must have been a new record, but it seemed as if Sherlock was for once content with his little experiment on bees. He called it his only truly altruistic experiment; but John hadn’t asked what he meant by that.

When Lestrade showed up, Sherlock had just been testing honey, creating a little explosion just as the DI walked into their flat. John didn’t even flinch, Lestrade almost jumped out of his skin.

“What is it?” Sherlock asked, sounding bored. John frowned at him, wondering why Sherlock was so content with his little project.

“A man jumped from the roof of his father’s old estate. No note, no hint, nothing.”

“And you think he was pushed.”

“A hunch,” Lestrade justified, making Sherlock snort.

“More data. Currently it sounds fairly boring.”

“He recently divorced his wife, losing everything in the process. Apparently there had been a pre-nup and he cheated. Tough luck.” The corner of Sherlock’s mouth rose lightly and John was ready to throw something if he’d start saying something about cheating to Lestrade. “Sounds like he had every reason to kill himself,” Sherlock said instead, poking his finger into the goo he had created in a Petri dish.

“He was about to propose to his girlfriend. The one he committed adultery with. And he jumped off the roof of his grandfather’s estate. A palace, basically, which he didn’t inherit, but which has been empty and falling apart since.”

“Why was he there?” Sherlock twirled his finger through the honey and sniffed it.

“That’s why I think he didn’t kill himself. Why would he go there; his parents said he hadn’t been to the place since he was a child. Apparently there was a fire, and after that the house was abandoned.”

“Still boring.”

“Would you come and look at him?”

“When?” Sherlock finally looked up and John rolled his eyes.

“When do you think, Sherlock! Come on, it’ll do you good to get out for a bit, get some air.”

“Ah, air…” Sherlock didn’t finish that sentence when he saw John’s face. ”Alright,” he finally agreed. “Address?”

Sherlock insisted on a cab, even though John told him that they still owed Mrs Hudson two months worth of rent. They reached the house and John was prepared to dig out his last notes when Sherlock stilled his hands. “Don’t worry about it.” The cab driver gave a wave and was off, making John stare at Sherlock in amazement; but before he could ask, Sherlock was walking towards the house in long strides, looking everywhere, trying to find clues where he didn’t even expect to find any. When they reached the body, broken in front of the main door, Sherlock actually laughed.

“He didn’t kill himself and he wasn’t killed.”

Lestrade stared at him. “Explain!”

“He must have fallen when he tried to retrieve a family heirloom. Up there on the roof. It’s not suicide. It was an accident. You can take the body away.”

“You’re kidding!”

“I’m not. He had lost a fortune to his ex-wife, but was about to get married. He is dressed for dinner and here,” he fished two tickets out of his pocked, “are tickets for a nice evening out at the opera.”

“That doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t have wanted to kill himself.”

“No, you’re right. One can never be sure about the state of the mind of those who used to be rich and lost everything,” he gave Lestrade a sheepish look, making John frown, because he was clearly missing something here, and started for the door, which had been sealed close but had been opened by the man. “Let me prove it to you.”

John watched as Sherlock disappeared in the house, feeling the greatest urge to follow him. “The house is not safe, is it?”

Lestrade frowned and shrugged his shoulders. “God help the man.”

“If something happens to him I’m going to kill him!”

Lestrade gave him a funny look and John turned away, trying to hide the blush that inconveniently crept into his face.

A few seconds later, Sherlock appeared in a window and crawled out onto the roof.

“Sherlock!” John yelled before he was out entirely. “Don’t you dare do something stupid!”

Sherlock grinned down from twenty five-feet above him and started climbing up a few metal steps which led to the chimney at the side of the house, which must have been where the man had slipped and fallen. John felt slightly sick, and he felt himself plant his feet firmly to the ground, willing Sherlock’s to be steady. He held his breath.

Sherlock carefully edged closer to the chimney, nudging his foot against a few lose tiles, smirking and nodding to himself. “He fell. The tiles came away as he stepped on them and …,” the rest of the sentence was cut short by a yell and suddenly Sherlock was gone in a cloud of dust. The roof had simply given out under his weight.

“Sherlock!” John raced towards the door, but Lestrade held him back. “I’m not letting you in there!” He pulled John away from the door, keeping an eye on the spot where Sherlock had disappeared.

“But he’s in there! What if he needs help? I have to go in!”

“Someone has to go in, yes, but not you.” Two officers in hard hats raced past them and entered the house while John stared, his heart in his throat. “Sherlock!”

Endless seconds ticked by until Sherlock’s head reappeared close to where he had fallen. He didn’t talk, but gave John a look that made John want to hit him - or kiss him; he wasn’t quite sure which of the two … possibly both. He tried to ignore the latter urge, writing it off as just another insane reaction to an insane action.  “Sherlock!”

“John, what?”

“Come down from there, you made your point.” The two officers walked out again, shrugging at Lestrade.

“But I haven’t found what I’m looking for; yet.” Sherlock took another experimental step forward and John closed his eyes, shaking his head. “I’ll kill him,” he murmured again.

“Found it!” Sherlock leaned down and removed a loose tile, picking up a small box which he waved at them and then stepped back. A loud crack, followed by the dreadful sound of falling timber and tiles, and Sherlock was gone.

John was inside the house before Lestrade could grab him. Racing up the stairs which were undoubtedly as brittle as that roof, John tried to figure out where Sherlock had been and how he had gotten up there. He was out of breath when he reached the third floor, having jumped over more holes in those stairs than he would have ever done under any other circumstances. He yelled Sherlock’s name, and this time he got an answer in the form of a groan. His heart was hammering in his chest when a cloud of dust showed him the way and he found Sherlock lying across the floor on a pile of dust and dirt, trying to get up on his own but failing somehow. “Don’t move!” John carefully climbed over the debris and crouched down next to him. “Can you move your arms?”

Sherlock lifted them and waved them about. “I’m fine, John!” Blood was seeping out from a small cut on his left hand, but apart from that, John couldn’t see any obvious injuries. Before he could ask about his legs, Sherlock just grabbed his arm and rolled over, coming to rest on hands and knees, shaking his head. “Where did it go?”

John looked at him blankly.

Sherlock rolled his eyes and rubbed his hand over his face, leaving a streak of blood on his cheek which made John feel slightly sick again. “The box, John. The box. Ah, there it is.” He stood up and walked over to where the small box lay between the rubble. “That was what he was looking for.”

“And you couldn’t just tell Lestrade?” John stared at him, unable to process Sherlock’s actions.

“This was so much more fun!” Sherlock actually grinned at John and something just snapped.

“You idiot!” John punched him, smearing the blood on his cheek. He could hear people outside, who were probably taking the necessary precautions and climbed up slowly but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Sherlock stared at him.

“You could have killed yourself!” John could feel tears of relief and anger prickle behind his eyes as he stared back at Sherlock, who didn’t seem to understand at all why John had just hit him.

John knew that he had to get out of there, but he wouldn’t watch Sherlock hopping down those stairs in another bid to kill himself, so he touched Sherlock’s cheek, trying to wipe away the blood and then he was suddenly so very close, close enough to just lean over and kiss him firmly on the lips.

He couldn’t say why he did it, but he was so relieved that Sherlock was standing up and apparently unhurt apart from that cut after falling twelve feet and landing on his back that he felt it was the only option to handle the situation; that, or to punch him again.

The kiss was short, and Sherlock didn’t react at all, but there was wonder in his eyes when John moved away, wonder, and something else which he had never seen before. John stepped back just as the officers and a medic barged into the room. Neither of them spoke.

John was escorted down, but the interior of the house seemed more stable than the roof after all and soon he sat in a police car, asking to be taken home. He knew Sherlock would be taken to a hospital, but for once he was the one leaving the crime scene without a word of explanation.  

 

It took Sherlock a while to get home and he headed straight for the shower. John sat in the kitchen, trying to make sense of everything that had happened. It was obvious that his reaction had been caused by relief and that he definitely hadn’t planned it.

He had thought about kissing Sherlock; usually just before falling asleep, when he couldn’t tell his brain to leave him be and not bother him with images that made him comfortably uncomfortable. But now he had done it, and it had been neither romantic nor in any way how he had imagine it might be; knowing full well that it would never be. Sherlock might just ignore it and take it for another unexplainably pedestrian emotional thing he couldn’t be arsed trying to understand.

But the kiss wasn’t really the problem after all, no matter how heavily it rested on John’s conscience. The problem was that Sherlock’s reckless actions had almost caused him a heart attack; he had been truly afraid that something might have happened to him. That moment when Sherlock fell for the second time kept repeating itself in slow motion behind his eye lids and he had begun to feel truly upset about it all. But he couldn’t go and punch Sherlock every time he did something incredibly stupid. He couldn’t explain himself either. For the first time he didn’t know what to do.

“John?”

John closed his eyes and held more tightly on to his tea cup.

“John.” Sherlock sounded a bit put out, but John couldn’t face him now. He did not want to look at him, knowing that he had almost lost …

“John!”

If Sherlock said his name one more time there would definitely be more punching. “Fuck off. I’m not speaking to you.” He could _hear_ Sherlock frown. Then another inhale, his name already on the lips he had kissed not so long ago, but never uttered. Sherlock silently returned to his room.

“Fucking hell,” John muttered, rubbing his face. He should go to bed and forget about today, or, checking the watch, at least take an extended nap.

Once in bed, he couldn’t forget about Sherlock falling backwards; that horrible moment playing over and over and over in his head.

He woke up with a start, hearing someone yell Sherlock’s name. Sitting in bed, he squeezed his eyes closed, trying to calm his racing heart. Only when his breathing was calmer and he was ready to lie down again did he notice the shadow in the small slither of light under his door. It remained immobile and John was about to get out of bed and check whether Sherlock had placed something outside his door when it slowly moved and disappeared.

John’s heart ached. He knew Sherlock cared, but why had he been there. It hadn’t occurred often, but every now and then Sherlock had knocked loudly on his door and stuck his head in when John had suffered from nightmares and woken up screaming. He remembered hearing Sherlock’s name and realised that he must have been the one yelling it.

“Oh God,” he dropped back onto the bed, covering his face with his hands. First the kiss and now this; Sherlock would think that John had become obsessed with him; and, knowing him, wouldn’t simply let it rest.

Better face him now so they could both go back to normal. With a sigh he got up, checking the clock. It was just after eight and now he wasn’t tired anymore.

The living room was empty and so was the kitchen. The door to Sherlock’s room was slightly open, but when John knocked he didn’t get an answer. He had gone out then; just as well.

Two cups of tea restored John’s calm a bit, but he started worrying about Sherlock again, even more so when he tried to call him and heard his phone ring in the distance. Sherlock never left his phone. Ever.

So he simply waited for him to come home. Flipping through the pages of several magazines to keep him somehow occupied he started to wonder if he should apologise to Sherlock. He couldn’t truly be sure what he thought about it and he knew that presupposing something about Sherlock usually led to embarrassment.

Sherlock hadn’t had any kind of romantic relationship since he had known him, and he couldn’t quite imagine him flirting with anyone without it being a means to an end. Well, when John flirted it was usually a means to an end as well, and even though none of his relationships – or flings, rather – had lasted very long, he had at least had someone every now and then to forget about everything else for a few hours. Sherlock was always focused; even when he was bored he was focused on being bored. It drove John mad, but he had wondered a few times whether sex might prove a much needed distraction to Sherlock’s constant extreme moods. Not that he could see him pick up a woman …

Watching him and Irene had been almost painful, and in the end it had become obvious that he wasn’t truly interested in her as a woman. He admired her for her intelligence and for the fact that she had beaten him; but he had had more than one chance to sleep with her and he hadn’t budged once.

Well, at least he had tried to talk to him and respected his wish to be left alone, John thought, but the longer he sat there, the more he wondered whether everything had now changed between them. Well, he could only wait and see.

When Sherlock wasn’t back by midnight, he called Greg Lestrade, who told him that he hadn’t seen Sherlock since he had taken him to the hospital. John did not feel like calling Mycroft, who would undoubtedly already know that something had happened; and Mrs Hudson would already be asleep. So he went back to bed, hoping that Sherlock would be back in the morning. Not that he would talk to him; but just to know that he was alright. He fell asleep to the look on his face after he had leaned back after the kiss only to watch him fall again and again.

He woke up late and when he opened his eyes he saw that the door was slightly open. So Sherlock must have returned and checked on him. Something started burning in his stomach and he got up to investigate. When he opened the door he found Sherlock sitting next to it, legs drawn close to his body his head resting on his knees; sleeping. It was so out of the ordinary that John forgot that he had been upset with him and instead smiled widely down on the sleeping form of his flatmate.

“Sherlock?” he asked quietly, not quite wanting to disturb his sleep. “Sherlock, wake up.” He crouched down and gently touched his shoulder. “Sherlock.”

Sherlock opened his eyes and blinked a few times before he could focus on John’s face. Then he suddenly jumped, unfolded his body and stood. “I apologise,” he said, his voice still thick with sleep. “I did not intend on falling asleep.” And with that he made for the stairs and was gone.

“Sherlock!” John called after him, but didn’t get an answer.

Sherlock stayed at home this time, but he seemed a bit out of sorts and when John asked whether everything was alright, he only gave a grunt and turned his back and proceeded to noisily hack away at some cables on the kitchen table.

John offered tea and Sherlock glared at him; John offered lunch and Sherlock left the kitchen. By afternoon, John was tired of Sherlock’s sulk and still not quite ready to forgive him his foolish behaviour the night before.

When it had gotten dark out and they hadn’t had a proper conversation all day, John felt that maybe they ought to talk about it; because maybe Sherlock didn’t understand why he was so upset him with, even if he did, in theory. Sherlock had those moments when something that was perfectly clear to anyone, Sherlock would simply miss the point.

He made tea and carried it into the living room, putting the mug down in front of Sherlock. “What’s the matter?” He sat down next to him on the couch, close enough to make sure that he could grab Sherlock should he try to leave and far away enough to not put himself right into his personal space.

Sherlock inhaled sharply and turned to glare at John again. “You. You are the matter. What is wrong with you?”

“What?” John tried not to shy away from those blazing eyes, but it was hard to keep his chin up.

“With me? You’re the one who selfishly tried to kill himself just to prove a point.”

“You punch me, then you kiss me and then you tell me to, and I quote, ‘fuck off’ and refuse to talk to me!”

“I’m sorry.” John frowned, feeling that maybe he had been getting this completely wrong. Sherlock must have been entirely confused by the mixed signals he was getting from John and then being deprived of his chance to figure out the puzzle he had been not so gently rebuffed.

“For what?” Sherlock sat back a bit, his eyes losing the hard glare a bit.

“I was upset. I was angry with you. I couldn’t deal with …”

“For what are you sorry?”

“For everything, for whatever makes you think you should just glare at me and make me out to be the bad guy.”

Sherlock’s features darkened. John wasn’t sure he had ever seen him get angry so quickly; and he wasn’t sure whether he could stop it.

“And I am sorry for hitting you when you were clearly in pain and in shock.”

“I was not in shock!” Sherlock spoke dangerously quiet and John wondered whether it was time to get out of Sherlock’s face and possibly put several miles between them.

“Stop it!” John found himself going against his instinct for one, speaking loudly; an order. “Just stop this and let me talk!”

Sherlock stood up, upsetting the mug on the coffee table. He didn’t move to save it from falling but walked around it and started pacing.

“I was worried about you,” John started, hoping that somehow he could get Sherlock to understand why he had behaved like he had; and Sherlock knew he had been upset. He had heard him scream in his dreams, he had been there, right there, behind his door. And he had apparently slept in front of his open door to make sure that he wouldn’t dream again and …”oh”. John gaped. Then he swallowed hard. “Sherlock?” His voice was down to almost a whisper. “Sherlock, look at me.” Pleading now, he noticed, cringing internally.

And Sherlock did stop, his hands in fists and his jaw set tightly.

“Why did you sleep outside my door?”

“Irrelevant,” Sherlock snapped and resumed his pacing.

John exhaled loudly. There was only one thing he could say apparently. “I’m not sorry about the kiss.”

Sherlock stopped dead in his tracks; so suddenly that he had to spread out his arms to keep the balance. “What?”

Shit, had that made it all worse? John bit his tongue. Sherlock had heard him and he hated to repeat himself, but something made him say it again; louder this time, with more confidence. “I don’t regret kissing you.”

It felt liberating somehow, liberating and incredibly scary. He could feel that he started to shake, as if he had sat in the cold for too long; but it wasn’t cold.

Sherlock remained frozen to the spot for several heartbeats before he moved back to the couch and picked up the mug, placing it carefully on the table. “I’m sorry I scared you,” he said, quietly and sad. John looked at him wordlessly. “I’m an idiot.”

“I would have talked to you if you had tried a little harder,” John said after a moment’s silence.

“I was afraid of what you might say,” Sherlock still looked at him, which made John shake a little harder.

“Were you afraid I might try to kiss you again?”

Sherlock sniffed. “I was mildly afraid you might punch me again. And that you might start crying.”

John felt light headed. If he passed out now, Sherlock would forever take the piss. Though he had fallen off a roof twice within a few minutes, so John would know how to respond, just in case.

“John. I’m sorry for scaring you.”

“You said that.”

“I am. I underestimated the effect it would have on you. I should have known. I know how … protective you are of me.” For the first time he broke eye-contact with John, but his hand moved to rest on John’s arm. John was truly surprised to find that he wasn’t the only one shaking.

“So you weren’t afraid of another kiss?”

Sherlock shook his head.

“I am, though,” John confessed and Sherlock looked back up again.

“John, you know what … I mean, what you mean … to me you mean …”

“How can you not be afraid?”

“Will you try again?” He leaned closer and John closed his eyes. “You’d be allowed to punch me first, but not in the face,” Sherlock added in a whisper.

“You sat outside my door all night to make sure I was alright.”

“I did.”

“I will,” John said quietly, and opened his eyes and closed the distance between them.


End file.
